the fine that Microsoft has to pay for its abuse of its dominant market position and refusal to provide interoperability documentation. The 1998 case, brought by the Free Software Foundation Europe and the Samba Team and assisted by SIIA, ECIS, IBM, Red Hat and Oracle, was being appealed by Microsoft, which wanted a 2008 ruling and fine to be annulled and to have its costs paid by the Commission and others.

Instead, it has been ordered to pay 95% of the commission's costs and 80% of the FSFE, Samba Team and the other intervenor's costs. The Associated Press reports that the penalty for non-compliance with a 2004 order has been trimmed by €39 million to €860 million. Microsoft was initially fined €497 million in 2004, then penalised €280 million in 2006 for non-compliance and again, another €899 million in 2008.

The FSFE's President, Karsten Gerloff, said "The European Commission was right in being tough on Microsoft. We have worked hard to support the Commission in this case, and are extremely proud of the victory we've achieved." The Commission's Joaquin Almunia said the Commission felt the decision "fully vindicates" its action against Microsoft and that, thanks to that action, "a range of innovative products that would otherwise not have seen the light of day were introduced on the market".

Microsoft said it was "disappointed with the Court's ruling," though it had already made provision for the fines and now has no outstanding issues with the EU Commission. Microsoft has not said whether it plans to appeal to the European Court of Justice, the highest court in Europe. The full judgement can be read on InfoCuria, the archive of Court of Justice case law.

Gonna play Devil's Advocate but anyways Microsoft Word isn't software that is bundled with Windows... I believe these cases are referring to the software that is integrated into Windows. Fair enough for that though, Windows is absolutely loaded with so many different services such as media players, media centres, DVD authoring tools and basic word processing (wordpad). These things would no doubt underut competitors of similar products who may struggle to get their products to success because some people would rather not bother download alternatives when Windows already comes with what you need.

However, although Microsoft would afford it, 860 million Euro seems absolutely ridiculous.

Edited:

Honestly I'd rather see a Windows operating system with only basic things such as a basic file browser (we already got Windows Explorer), a basic web browser (I'm not too sure on IE9's integration because it is a very competitive browser, I was thinking of something such as a tabbed Windows Explorer with basic internet browsing capabilities) and the accessories such as Notepad (for purposes such as modifying program files, not for proper word processing). However this idea is unrealistic for Windows at least as it (Windows) targets the mass market which needs to consider convenience for all users, rather than my idea of targeting a minimalist market. Somehow reminds me of looking at some "minimalist" Linux distro, "minimalist" yet packing shit such as a word processor and spreadsheet application which not everyone is going to use.

Honestly I'd rather see a Windows operating system with only basic things such as a basic file browser (we already got Windows Explorer), a basic web browser (I'm not too sure on IE9's integration because it is a very competitive browser, I was thinking of something such as a tabbed Windows Explorer with basic internet browsing capabilities) and the accessories such as Notepad (for purposes such as modifying program files, not for proper word processing).

What the fuck? 1.5~ billion fucking dollars for this? Who gets that much god damn money, and why? Why is a monopoly warning or whatever worth $1.5 billion, why not just force them to slow their rolls or something? Jesus christ, the only thing that can come of this is a hurt economy, fining a massive employer so much fucking money is going to lead to some cutbacks...

What the fuck? 1.5~ billion fucking dollars for this? Who gets that much god damn money, and why? Why is a monopoly warning or whatever worth $1.5 billion, why not just force them to slow their rolls or something? Jesus christ, the only thing that can come of this is a hurt economy, fining a massive employer so much fucking money is going to lead to some cutbacks...

What the fuck? 1.5~ billion fucking dollars for this? Who gets that much god damn money, and why? Why is a monopoly warning or whatever worth $1.5 billion, why not just force them to slow their rolls or something? Jesus christ, the only thing that can come of this is a hurt economy, fining a massive employer so much fucking money is going to lead to some cutbacks...

And it's useless, cause MS is used to just pay their fines and to change nothing.

abuse of its dominant market position and refusal to provide interoperability documentation

Not sure exactly how much the first part affected the hearing since they provide no examples in the source but they were sued in part because they wouldn't help others reverse engineer their own software? I'm seriously confused.

Not sure exactly how much the first part affected the hearing since they provide no examples in the source but they were sued in part because they wouldn't help others reverse engineer their own software? I'm seriously confused.

They have the dominant PC market and refuse to document how to make others work with it's network protocol.
In a monopoly, that hurts potential competitors.

They have the dominant PC market and refuse to document how to make others work with it's network protocol.
In a monopoly, that hurts potential competitors.

Are you talking about winsock? Because I've used both winsock and normal sockets on a linux box I had and they've never had any problems communicating, they're supposed to work together fine. Or is this about windows hilarious local file sharing systems that nobody uses?

If you did it, the case would not be dropped (because you are pretty much threatening publicly), you'd lose even more money and you'd probably get fined in the US for it too.

And you think denial of service is illegal why exactly? granted they would prolly lose money if they didnt sell their product there anymore (lose more then the cost of the fine i mean)- it would be a stupid move financially. It would in no way be illegal.

fake edit to point out microsoft is planning on paying this fine by charging eu users even more then usual

We could all explain it, but it probably wouldn't make any sense to anyone, but a lawyer. The details are that Microsoft has been fined with increasing amounts of money for not following EU competitiveness laws. Nothing too unfamiliar because they've already done it with another technology giant Intel.